Chapter 118: Eyewitnesses

Fu Cheng said, “You guys can go first. I’ll finish this cigarette before I go call the police for him.”

Xu Tingsheng and Huang Yaming both looked doubtfully at him, shaking their heads as they were afraid that he might do something extreme after they had left.

Meeting their eyes, Fu Cheng said in a sincere tone, “Trust me.”

Xu Tingsheng nodded, coming beside Zhang Junming and squatting down, only saying when the latter had opened his eyes, “Look, we still haven’t calmed down yet. Well, there’s no helping it. You’re the most disgusting person I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Perhaps because he knew that the three were already preparing to leave it at that, just having experienced the fear of death, Zhang Junming forced out a smile that was still derisive as well as provocative.

After Xu Tingsheng had left, he directed such a gaze at Fu Cheng who was sitting by the roadside.

“Why don’t you kill me? Dare you do it?” Zhang Junming mocked him in a low tone.

Fu Cheng ignored him, slowly finishing puffing on his cigarette, adjusting his breathing and extinguishing the cigarette. Then, he stood up and casually retrieved a small bottle from his pocket, opening it as he walked slowly towards Zhang Junming.

Zhang Junming’s eyes opened the widest they could as they contained immense fear as well as panic. He struggled to get up and flee, yet was only physically able to crawl frantically away.

Moving forward neither urgently nor slowly, Fu Cheng trapped Zhang Junming against the wall.

“Know what this is?” Fu Cheng raised the bottle in his hand and asked in a heavy tone.

Of course Zhang Junming knew what it was that Fu Cheng was holding. Not long ago, he had been holding the exact same thing in his hand, mercilessly flinging it towards Fang Yunyao. It was acid. Back then, Fang Yunyao had fortunately been able to evade it. However, there was no escaping it for Zhang Junming now.

“No, no! Please, I beg you,” Zhang Junming pleaded as he repeatedly slammed his head into the ground, kowtowing to Fu Cheng.

He was so cold-blooded and brutal in his treatment of others. Yet, when faced against an equivalent threat, he lacked even the slightest degree of courage and stubbornness as he was kowtowing non-stop and begging for mercy.

“Please, don’t! Spare...spare me,” His entire face filled with snot and tears, Zhang Junming begged unceasingly.

Fu Cheng smiled for the first time that day, a kind of disdainful yet helpless smile, “Tingsheng’s right. You’re really the most disgusting person we’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, Ms Fang is the best, nicest person I’ve ever seen...therefore, you ought to die.”

Fu Cheng raised the bottle above Zhang Junming’s head, making as if getting ready to pour it.

“Dont’! No...no...no...arghh!” Zhang Junming was shrieking non-stop in panic and helplessness, his entire body trembling and struggling unceasingly as his features distorted.

A stench suddenly permeated the air. Fu Cheng looked at Zhang Junming. He...had simultaneously defecated and wet himself.

As his phone vibrated, Fu Cheng took it out and glanced at it, seeing a message that Xu Tingsheng had sent over, “Ms Fang will definitely wake up. Let’s go see her in a few days; she’ll surely be missing you. Remember, you still have to take care of her in the future.”

……

Fu Cheng called the police.

When the police car arrived, he had already stubbed out his cigarette, standing obediently by the side as he awaited their arrival. Zhang Junming was still struggling on the ground, his entire body covered in blood as he was trembling and twitching so acutely that even the policemen felt a bit of a chill at the sight of him.

“What happened to him?”

“He got beaten up.”

“Was it you who called the police?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see who did it?”

“It was me.”

Zhang Junming got on the ambulance while Fu Cheng got on the police car. Less than half an hour later, Fu Qizhi received a call, learning of his son’s matter. He immediately rushed to the hospital, but halted just as he was outside the door of the ward Zhang Junming was in.

Inside the room, Zhang Junming was roaring, “I definitely won’t let him get away with this! I’ll destroy him!”

Fu Qizhi retracted his hand that had been about to knock on the door.

The old Chief of the Trade and Industry Bureau was soon to retire, with his deputies currently in a midst of a fierce battle to decide which would become his successor. Meanwhile, Zhang Junming was not from Fu Qizhi's faction. He would definitely make a big hoo-ha out of this matter.

Leaving the hospital, Fu Quzhi made a few calls before heading to the detention centre.

Fu Cheng and his father argued when they met in the detention centre, because Fu Cheng very frankly spelled out his feelings for Fang Yunyao.

Mr Fu stomped off in a fit of anger.

Yet Fu Cheng was his only son, Mrs Fu was crying at home like there was no tomorrow and there was also the current ongoing struggle for power to worry about...

Fu Quzhi knew that there were probably no other paths available to him. Having perpetually been concealing his fangs and claws before as he bided his time and nourished his strength, he would now be baring his fangs and flashing his claws.

……

Two days, three days. Time flowed unceasingly by.

……

Under the joint pressure of the Xu and Fu families, the investigations of the police were naturally on a whole different level from before. The higher-ups were unanimous in their verdict: thunderbolt-swift action, all-out effort.

Zhang Junming remained in the hospital. He had still yet to recover from his injuries, but even if he had recovered, he would still have continued sticking to his hospital bed. He had already felt a change in the current situation.

Police officers had appeared outside his ward.

If he was discharged from the hospital, it would be the detention centre that awaited him.

All the classmates and relatives who had still been assisting him earlier had suddenly vanished. Meanwhile, the Vice Bureau Chief that he followed, instead of logically helping him and going all out against his assailant, had not acted at all.

Zhang Junming knew that he had been abandoned, thrown away.

He could not understand why that was so, especially being unable to comprehend why that Vice Bureau Chief whom he followed had willingly given up such an opportunity to drag Fu Qizhi down, until he learnt of another matter.

The youth who had been the first to attack him that day was surnamed Xu. Other than Fu Qizhi, there was also the Xu Family that had toppled the Huang Family and shaken the entire Libei not all that long ago that was currently acting against him.

The unknown always evoked fear. In the current Libei, there was no one who clearly understood the Xu Family's true foundations.

There were just countless rumours, such as the never-ending, limitless bags of money, such as those calls that had been made from the city and from even the provincial government when something had happened to the family.

Also, there was the twenty-year-old Xu Tingsheng of the Xu Family whose exploits had been spread and exhorted like that of a divinity's. Some said that he was an unparalleled genius, reversing the frenzied tides with his own strength, while there were also those who said that he was vicious and ruthless, inscrutable and unfathomable.

Zhang Junming could only place all his hopes on his mother. She was that kind of traditional mother who was simple to the point of even being a little weak, loving and spoiling her son to the extent that she would be willing to give up everything for him.

Mrs Zhang did not disappoint Zhang Junming. Whatever the police did, she would only say: It was me, I plead guilty.

Xu Tingsheng and Huang Yaming went around searching for a breakthrough as well. While on an investigation on their own in the vicinity of the Zhang Family home, they would sometimes come across some police officers who were similarly investigating the area as well. However, neither of their two groups managed to find anything.

Mrs Zhang seldom spoke to others and seldom left her house, having very few interactions with her neighbours. On the day of the incident, there was no one who had seen her, being able to prove that she had not been at the scene of the crime.

Meanwhile, unable to get along with his son, Zhang Junming's father had moved back to his hometown to live by himself long ago, seldom having any interactions with them.

Xu Tingsheng and Huang Yaming had looked for Mr Zhang. After quietly hearing them out, Mr Zhang had sighed, not uttering a sound as he had walked back into his house and shut the door. However much Xu Tingsheng and Fu Cheng had pleaded, he had refused to say even a single word.

Having brought Mr Zhang away to assist in their investigation, the police had also been unable to gain anything useful from him at all.

One of them was his wife, while the other was his son. This man must be feeling incomparably agonised within. Still, he still remained silent on the matter nonetheless.

Xu Tingsheng and Huang Yaming turned their attention to the school, spending many days searching for helpful information in Libei Senior High. Most of the students and teachers in this school knew Xu Tingsheng, with there being many who were willing to help him.

Still, it was all to no avail.

“Were there really no eyewitnesses?”

Xu Tingsheng received a call from Wu Yuewei over the weekend. Ever since Xu Tingsheng had appeared in the school, she had constantly been helping him in quietly seeking out information from behind the scenes whilst keeping away from interrupting him.

It had been the same back during the Xu Family's crisis previously. She had merely quietly accompanied Xu Qiuyi all the way, yet never having once come to interrupt Xu Tingsheng amidst his efforts.

Wu Yuewei called Xu Tingsheng and told him that there definitely was at least one eyewitness...On the day right after Fang Yunyao had failed to turn up for class, there had already been a rumour within the school which very accurately described what had happened to her, the flung but evaded acid and the stab wounds on her back included…

However, just after the news had began to spread, that person had vanished, not having said anything about their witnessing of the incident at all.

“Who is that person?”

Logically speaking, it should not be difficult to track that person down. However, be it the police, Xu Tingsheng and Huang Yaming or Vice Principal Lou, the other higher-ups of the school and the teachers, they were still ultimately unable to discover the identity of any eyewitnesses despite all their efforts.

Perhaps due to fear and cowardice or perhaps because of the common entrenched mindset of not getting entangled in matters which were not related to oneself, after having realised exactly how weighty of a matter this was, he or she had quickly concealed and distanced themselves from the matter.

Xu Tingsheng pinned several public notices pleading sincerely for assistance on campus, leaving behind his handphone number.

One day, two days...